Tag Archives: Anticipating the new year

Now that the holidays have passed I like to make goals for the new year. Some are already underway while others have yet to be defined. This is going to be an interesting year for our family. To begin the year Minnesota is hosting the Super Bowl and my wife and I are committed to be a part of that which will be great. My oldest daughter is getting ready to graduate from high school and move on to the next phase in her life so that’s going to be a big change for us. Before the school year ends we are expecting to complete our National Parks Monopoly board with a trip to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. After graduation there are no definitive plans which feels weird for me. I’ve had an adventure planned many summers and not having one this year seems like something is missing. Maybe this will be a good summer to get another dog and use this time to train it. Once the fall arrives there could be a transition bringing our daughter to college in a different state. We’ll see.

In just a few short weeks Super Bowl 52 will take place and I get to be there for all the fun, with my wife and several other family members, for the entire 10 days. During this time I’m a part of the volunteer group Crew 52 which will be roaming the Super Bowl Live area each day so if you’re in Minneapolis during Super Bowl week look for me and say hello. I’ll be the one in the long, blue coat that says Crew 52 Volunteer on it. In addition to that I’m also a part of the halftime setup crew so that is really exciting. There will be posts on these experiences I’m sure. The question often comes up wondering if I will be part of the crowd on TV. No, I’m part of the crew that sets up the staging and takes it down all in a matter of minutes so the only opportunity to get on TV is possibly in the background behind the on field analysts during halftime before or after the show.

Plans for traveling to Hawaii to explore this great National Park and Island have been in the works since last fall but there is still much to do before we go on this adventure over spring break. This is a happy and sad trip bringing mixed emotions each time I plan another piece of it. I’m really looking forward to spending this time with family exploring another National Park and learning more about volcanoes and the tropical wildlife in the area. However, this is the last trip that I may get to take with my children in this way. The future is uncertain with the oldest moving on in her life. Sure, there’s likely to be other trips but will it be with significant others or spouses and how often will vacations align to take trips like this? I’ve really enjoyed our trips to explore National Parks and cherish the time spent together and I will do the same with Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Shortly after returning from the Hawaiian Islands, graduation will take place. Something I am definitely not ready for. It’s one of those events you know will come (at least you hope it will) but that doesn’t make it any easier to prepare for. High School goes so fast even though it may not seem like it on a day to day level. Our youngest daughter has now entered her first year in high school so she is not far behind. It’s kind of exciting to see what her future holds as she becomes more in control of it. A factor I know that is scary for her but she’ll be fine I’m sure.

Once these events are complete there really is nothing on the books to look forward to. There are several possibilities such as more homeowner projects of which there are always plenty. I would like to take in a hiking and camping trip here or there to enjoy the summer and use the camera to photograph more beautiful scenery. Continuing to improve my photography is another goal throughout the year but I have nothing specific determined yet. We’ll have to see by the end of the year what comes up because one thing is almost guaranteed – something always comes up. I’m not one to just sit around hoping for things to appear. I hope you have several things to plan for to make 2018 a great year!

Two Thousand and Seventeen has now come to a close and I like to take a brief look back to see if I attained the goals set out in the beginning of the year and what else happened before going forward to the next year. The goals set out for 2017 included exploring Yellowstone, Little Bighorn, and Dinosaur National Parks, a return to Isle Royale, some home owner projects, and celebrating 20 years of marriage. We did end up visiting Grand Teton National Park and Craters of the Moon National Monument as a nice addition to our year. Most of these items were accomplished all except a hiking excursion to Isle Royale which was canceled just a couple of weeks before going off an this adventure. I’ll get more into this in a moment but first let’s look at the other goals.

Once summer began we were off to Montana to see the sight of Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn. It was a warm and very windy day while we were here giving us the full Western Prairie experience. Learning about and seeing how this battle unfolded was a great learning adventure. Even looking over the landscape and seeing the different encampment areas and trails taking to get here, it’s hard to image the battle which ensued on these lands. Fortunately there’s plenty of information in the visitors center to fill in the events leading up to this historic battle. A piece of American history that is brought to life by this park.

Yellowstone National Park was the next adventure waiting for us which brought beautiful landscapes and interactions with nature that will last forever in our memories (and photographs). It has been said this is the Serengeti of the United States because of the diverse and numerous wildlife living here. We absolutely can attest to that with several bear sightings, a wolf encounter, bison, elk, coyotes, and other wildlife making their way into our view. Experiencing the thermal features here are very impressive with geysers, extremely colorful hotsprings, and mudpots giving a unique adventure to those able to visit.

Our final park on the National Parks Monopoly board for 2017 was Dinosaur National Monument located in Utah and Colorado. To image dinosaurs roaming this area was special and really brought to reality by seeing first hand the skeletons still buried in the earth among the hills here. Very interesting to see what has been already un-Earthed and imagine how many more places in the undisturbed grounds still held on to these historic creatures. These are surrounded by beautiful landscapes created by two rivers creating valleys through the colorful hills over thousands of years. At night the dark sky becomes filled with stars from horizon to horizon. I spent a night just photographing these bright lights in the sky.

A few weeks before taking off to Grand Portage, Minnesota in August to hop on a boat and head to Isle Royale, the person I was going with had to cancel for work reason so I needed to make a decision of not going or going it alone. I decided to cancel primarily due to safety concerns. Our hotel was unable to be canceled by then so I decided to take the family to the North Shore of Minnesota to explore Voyager Days in Grand Portage along with a Pow Wow and take in the night sky with the Perseid Meteor shower on full display. This was all great to discover but would have been even better after hiking on Isle Royale for a week. One morning I got up to watch the sunrise and go exploring by myself photographing the beautiful area landscape. At one point I crawled up on some boulders only to have one of my hand holds give way causing me to fall onto the rocks below. Expecting to feel a lot of physical damage I only noticed one of my hands injured from this fall. Once I was up and walking around again I figured out that canceling the trip to Isle Royale by myself was a good idea for this very reason.

September brought my 20 year anniversary being married to my wife. We took a few days and stayed at the same lodge, Cove Point Lodge, that we stayed at on our honeymoon. It was interesting to see what has changed and what has stayed the same in those 20 years. The worst part about this celebration was realizing how much we’ve forgotten in those 20 years which was brought to our attention by looking back at pictures of twenty years ago in this very same place and not being able to remember several parts of our honeymoon. I guess that’s become one of the reason I like to take so many pictures.

Speaking of pictures, I ended up taking several thousand photographs again in 2017 and saw improvement in my picture taking abilities. There’s still more to learn and improve so I expect the same will hold true in the new year. It’s been another great year and I hope you had a number of memorable moments to look back on with a smile. On to 2018!

This is a year I’m certainly looking forward to as there are plenty of activities entering our calendar but also am getting a little concerned there is too much to accomplish to enjoy all I would like to. Last year’s goals were mostly accomplished with our travels to National Parks in Texas and Arkansas, taking thousands of pictures which I’m certain has improved my photography skills but still more to do, fixing broken portions of this website, as well as making it to Rocky Mountain National Park to hike Flattop Mountain and Long’s Peak.

What does that leave for 2017? Plenty! How about starting with our Monopoly goals of visiting Dinosaur, Little Bighorn, and Yellowstone National Parks? Yellowstone has been a place I’ve wanted to visit for a long time as it’s one of the marquee parks in the United States. The more I read about Dinosaur the more interested I get in exploring such a place tucked in Colorado’s northwest corner revealing pre-historic fossils among a beautiful landscape. What’s not to look forward to here? And Little Bighorn, a place among US history commonly known as Custer’s last stand. I get chills just writing that as it reminds me of Gettysburg and all those lost there.

There’s also a return trip to Isle Royale National Park for a more intense backpacking trip in the works. Our family took on an adventure here in 2012 at which time I insisted I was done backpacking and would never go back to this island. Well, a few months after my muscles and joints recovered I began to think about improvements I could do to enjoy it more but still never really seriously thought about another trip here. The most difficult part was carrying such a heavy backpack. Last summers adventure to Long’s Peak convinced me I could backpack and enjoy it. After almost despising an extended hike I’m now really excited about returning to the island and taking in more of what it has to offer. What’s different you ask? First I’m confident in my abilities after hiking 14 miles at higher altitudes and really want to know how much more I can enjoy it at elevations I can breath more easily at as well as I know how to prepare and train for an extended hike.

Add in to this landscaping projects and a small remodeling project at my house, a camping trip, a snowmobiling excursion, and celebrating 20 years of marriage to my wife and this year will fly by I’m sure. I hope 2017 becomes a great year for you as well!

Reflecting on 2015, which you can read about here, I came up with some things I would like to accomplish in this next year. First and foremost, I want to enjoy the activities and adventures we embark on. We did a lot of fun and exciting activities last year but I didn’t feel like I got the most out of them that I could because there was always another event coming up soon requiring attention to plan and prepare for taking attention away from what I was doing. It seemed like we were always in a rush to do whatever it was we were doing because there was something else that needed to get done or was scheduled. If I can help it that won’t be the case in 2016 for us!

My next goal is to explore Window Trail in Big Bend National Park, Padre Island National Seashore, and Hot Springs National Park. I’m pretty confident in being able to complete this in the next year as we already have some lodging accommodations, airfare, and a car reserved. I’m looking forward to this trip as we will be staying in Big Bend which will only be the second time staying right in a park reducing travel time and increasing exploration time.

As has been the case for the past several years, I want to continue learning and improving my photography. Originally I set the bar at wanting to take 3,500 photos this year. That just makes me laugh now after having taking over 11,000 in the past year. I’ve decided to up that to 5,000 photos towards the goal of improving. That means working on composition and technique, not just randomly taking pictures of family and friends or the dog. As part of this I want to capture images of individual snowflakes.

Along with the photography goal I would like to complete the Photography Experiment board by learning more about flash, fill flash, rock climbing, and travel portraits. This is a goal that would be nice to complete but if it doesn’t happen I won’t be too concerned. Still, working a little on it would be good.

Continuing to update and improve this site is another one of my goals for this year. Since I needed to re-build this website in 2015 I find several broken links that need to be addressed as well as some programming pieces that need to continue to be worked on to get them to work as I have envisioned.

I’ve wanted to put together a video from all of the photos taken on our trip to Alaska in 2013. It’s probably time to get this done so I can remove the photos from my computer and free up space. It is uncertain at this point if I will be able to post the video as I’m probably going to use music that is copyrighted preventing me from being able to use it on the internet.

One final goal for 2016 is to volunteer more. I feel like I failed at helping others in 2015 and that is something important to me to get back to this next year. Sure I volunteered to help coach my daughters basketball team and spent a number of hours volunteering at our church. I guess it comes down to volunteering at food shelves more. Seeing people starving is something that affects me and a priority for me to help reduce to the best of my ability. We are so fortunate to be able to have all that we need and it is up to us to help those that we can. Food and shelter are at the top of my list to help with when possible.

That should keep me busy this year and hopefully allow me to enjoy our adventures. If not, there are more homeowner projects to undertake and a potential hiking trip in the Rocky Mountains.

This past year seems more like a blur that lasted a few months rather than a full year as our family kept quite busy with lot’s of projects and activities. Now that 2015 has wrapped up and we’re on to 2016 it seems like a good time to review which goals were accomplished and those that I fell short on. Looking over my goals for this past year, which were published in this post (click on ‘post’ to read it), I see we managed to achieve half of them.

Exploring Padre Island and Hot Springs ended up being delayed until this spring. Instead we took in Great Smoky Mountain National Park and Shenandoah National Park to see Lewis Falls. The timeframe for Padre Island and Hot Springs became filled with an anniversary celebration trip for Karen’s mom and dad who have been together for over 40 years. Definitely an accomplishment worth celebrating in my book!

It may have almost killed me (at least it felt like it) but we completed our window project. I estimated my time spent which ended up at over 110 hours of my weekends and evenings to complete. That doesn’t include the time of others that helped me tear out the old ones and lift in the new ones. You can’t imagine how greatful I am to those that helped us and to be done with this home improvement.

Continuing my learning of photography took a back seat for much of the year so I didn’t complete my Photography Experiment Monopoly board once again. Maybe this year. In spite of this I did still manage to take over 11,000 pictures with my Sony Nex. That doesn’t include the thousands of images taken with my new photography addition – a GoPro Hero 4. By the way, I really enjoy the GoPro and where it can go and what it can do. I have definitely learned more about photography composition and techniques with the opportunities I was fortunate to have.

There were other accomplishments during 2015 which may end up in a different post.

Reflection is an important piece in learning but I don’t want to spend too much time on it because going forward provides the ability to experience new things. With that in mind, how did I do in accomplishing my 2014 goals? Here’s what they were from my 2013 in review post:

As I look over these I see I only accomplished a parts of most of them. Finishing the Photography Experiment Monopoly Board was close. There were five spaces that I didn’t complete – Flash, Fill Flash, Rock Climbing, and Travel Portraits. There are a couple of reasons they went uncompleted. First, these are unavailable on Peter Carey’s blog, and secondly because these aren’t experiments that seem as interesting or useful for me. Having said that I did start playing around with fill flash late this fall and realized there are times it can be quite useful so I may try to accomplish this space in the new year. Travel portraits are something I should probably pay more attention to as I tend to focus on scenery more than people taking in the scenery. Another goal for 2015.

We did get to explore Gettysburg and Edison but changed our plans to include the National Mall, Valley Forge, and a stop in New York which means Lewis Falls Trail is still on our list of places to experience. I have been debating since we started this National Parks adventure on how many places to cram into one trip and if it should be done at one time or split into multiple trips. Opportunity provided the answer with a conference in Baltimore making more sense to visit areas around that city. Lewis Falls Trail goal will be added to another year. In addition to only partially completed Gettysburg, Edison, and Lewis Falls Trail, I didn’t fulfill the goal of sharing those travel experiences with others. That was a little bit beyond my control. I did share other travel experiences with people beyond the four of us on a journey to Mammoth Cave, Churchill Downs, and a few days in Las Vegas.

Another goal that I made but didn’t really push for was to take at least 3,500 photos to improve my photography. Surprisingly I took over 5,000 pictures this year. I write surprisingly because by the forth of July I had only taken 1,300 photos so the last half of the year provided more opportunities.

That essentially recaps the 2014 goals. Let’s move on to 2015.

The goals for this next year don’t include quite as much travel at this point. Here there are:

-Explore Padre Island and Hot Springs

-Complete the window replacements at my house

-Finish a few more spaces on the Photography Experiment Monopoly Board such as Fill Flash and Travel Portraits

-Take 3,500 more photographs in an effort to continue improving.

I started replacing windows in the house back in 2011 and figure I better finish all of the windows before styles change or the stain I used at that time become unavailable along with trying to keep all of the windows about the same age. Since there is not expected to be as much travel in 2015 I figured it’s a good year to complete windows.

It’s always interesting to look over the last year to see where you were so that you figure out where you’re going. We choose what point we call a year in order to do this. It doesn’t have to be when the year changes. Maybe there’s an anniversary of something meaningful or another date in the year that makes more sense for you. Most people decide to do this as the year comes to a close on the calendar and a new one is beginning. I guess mentally it gives us a sense of finality and an opportunity to start fresh with the change of a number in the year.

Questions I like to ask are: Did the goals set get achieved ? If so, were they beneficial goals? Was there satisfaction in achieving them? If not, why not? Should those goals be extended another year? Where there other achievements that weren’t set as goals but happened anyway? How did those unexpected achievements affect you? There are a number of other questions you can use to analyze the year and how you used it but these will get me started.

-Share these travel experiences with others creating life long memories they can reflect on.

Well, how did these come out?

I completed over half of the Photography Monopoly Board but have yet to finish it. I will continue this in 2014. While working on this I got involved with photography so much that I spent quite a bit of time out and about taking pictures. Just to give you an idea of what I’m referring to, I took over 55,000 photos in 2013. While this seems like an incredible number to me, 48,000 of them are from a time-lapse project covering our entire Alaskan Cruise. That leaves 7,000 images taken while working on photography this year. Still a lot of images to go through for a year. Many of these are not great pictures but I still like looking through them as they remind me of the adventures taken in order to get the images. As I’m sure you can imagine there are a number of really nice photos as well. Just the laws of probability suggest that if you take enough pictures, some of them will turn out. This has created an unexpected issue for me. How do I display the number of images I really like? There are too many and not enough wall space. This photography experiment will continue into 2014 because it has helped me improve and I enjoy it a lot.

We did explore Olympic National Park and were joined by 5 other family members as we did so creating some wonderful memories while learning some great information. Also, the Alaskan cruise taking us through Glacier Bay National Park and to the Chilkoot Trail was accomplished. There were a total of 14 friends and family on that part of our adventure, 7 of which had never been on a cruise before. There are a couple of posts yet to come from this trip. So, all in all, 3 out of the 4 goals were accomplished. Why is sharing these experiences a goal of mine? I love seeing and doing things I’ve never seen or done before. Probably the only thing that I enjoy more than that is to watch others as they experience new things. These adventures don’t mean much to me unless I can share them. As an example, while working on photography I found a nearby park reserve that offers many opportunities for some great photos. There have been numerous trips there this fall with many more coming I’m sure. Only a handful of times has there been someone with me. It is those few times that stand out for me more than the others because I get to share that with the people who have been with me.

Some unexpected achievements this past year include a couple of trips to the North Shore of Minnesota along with a few weekends camping with friends. One big one was the opportunity for Lysa to go to Europe during the summer of 2014. That one has definitely altered this next year for all of us both economically and time constraints.

As one year ends and another begins I like to reflect on the events of the previous year. On what worked well, things that did not go so well, and maybe even pass briefly over those memories that are better off forgotten. Why do this? For me, I imagine myself much older and unable to do the things I can now. When I get to that point in life I want to have as few regrets as possible. Whether that be things I regret doing or things I would regret not doing. Reflecting on the past year helps to find things to improve upon or objectives I did not meet as well as those I did. Once I figure this out I can determine why I did or did not meet those goals and what I need to change for the next year. The ultimate goal is to end the year completing all of my objectives unable to improve upon them. Well, I’m sure we all can guess how many years go by that I can improve on nothing else. NEVER!

Last year was almost a blur if went by so fast. Every year one of my goals is always to take a beautiful summer day and watch the clouds float by enjoying a light breeze and the sounds around. I may have forgotten to do that in 2011. Fortunately there were some nights sitting by the campfire after everyone else had turned in for the night watching the fireflies and enjoying the peace of the moment. Watching the world go by for at least part of a summers day is yet again one of my goals for 2012. Along with that, a trip to California to explore Yosemite and a week in Northern Minnesota/Michigan camping in Isle Royale and possibly Voyageurs National Park are on the list of places to experience. Travel tends to be a fairly high priority in my house so many of our goals are centered around that. There are objectives to provide as many experiences for Lysa and Kristy without over doing it. They are still kids and need to spend some time being one.

There are home improvement goals, financial goals, and professional goals to go with the objectives decided on for travel. It is fun for me to look at what we accomplish in a year and sometimes there is disbelief that certain goals are met. I tried the New Years resolution for a couple of years and decided that setting goals was more encouraging and ultimately more successful.